


the more i fall

by endquestionmark



Category: Grayson (Comics)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 16:33:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4529148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick wakes up, which he doesn’t expect.</p><p>It isn’t so much that he’s surprised to be alive, a sensation which has somewhat lost its novelty for him, or that he’s unhappy about it, necessarily, but it just doesn’t seem to be the way Spyral does things: a medical wing, and all his own organs, as far as he can tell, and no pieces of his memory missing, like worn-out cassette tape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the more i fall

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-Grayson #5, apropos of absolutely nothing beyond musings on various relationships to the idea of casual contact and also partly because of a challenge I set myself a long time ago regarding writing heat exhaustion and heatstroke, but let's not focus on that. For once I have nobody to blame for this except myself.

Dick wakes up, which he doesn’t expect.

It isn’t so much that he’s surprised to be alive, a sensation which has somewhat lost its novelty for him, or that he’s _unhappy_ about it, necessarily, but it just doesn’t seem to be the way Spyral does things: a medical wing, and all his own organs, as far as he can tell, and no pieces of his memory missing, like worn-out cassette tape. Frau Netz must have a soft spot for him, or maybe she just wants to wait until she’s sure he isn’t suffering internal damage to swoop in. It’s not as if being too resilient to write off but too battered to be useful is particularly new to him either. After all, he’s a dead man, and yet here he is.

“Bet you’re wishing you’d stayed out,” Helena says, and Dick flinches before he can stop himself, which sets off some fun physiological responses that make him reconsider being happy to be alive. His head hurts profoundly, and he can feel his heart hammering at his ribs; when he shifts, the room swims around him, as if through a heat haze, and everything from his lungs down to his kidneys is an indiscriminate ache, like an unremitting hangover or the aftereffects of being poisoned.

“Could’ve done with a few more hours,” he says, and the words feel rounded, nonsense syllables in his mouth. He’s pretty sure that he’s slurring, and he can’t quite focus on the ceiling; when Helena leans into view, though, he can make out the shape of her face, the set of her mouth, and from there it’s easier for him to decipher the world. Outside, unfamiliar birdsong; the sparrows around St. Hadrian’s are more melodic and less circumspect in their calls, and Dick hadn’t realized how much he missed Gotham’s incessant chatter until he was gone, back to quiet nights when the world is so dark outside his window that he can believe, if he tries, that St. Hadrian’s is the only place left, quiet as it is, where there is light.

The room, blessedly, is dim; it’s not private, but the curtain is drawn, and the shifting shadows suggest that it’s late in the afternoon, though — “What day is it?” Dick asks, and regrets it; worse than losing time is relying on somebody else to tell him exactly how much he’s missed — Helena looks surprisingly lucid, for someone who he last saw bleeding out into the sand. Probably longer than he’d like to think about, in that case.

“Two days,” Helena says, which isn’t the answer that he asked for, but the one that he wanted. “Dr. Ashemoore said three, but then Frau Netz took that as a challenge. She’ll be glad you’re awake. I’m pretty sure they had money riding on it.”

“Never bet against Frau Netz,” Dick says, and Helena half-smiles.

“Especially not when she gets her hands on an ice bath,” she says. “I can’t tell whether you’re actually well enough to be sarcastic or if it’s just so instinctive that you can’t help it.”

“What can I say?” Dick says, and tries to sit up, which is a mistake; the sheets pull at his back, and he tips his head back and breathes through the sudden shock of heat until he’s in some semblance of verticality. “You can take the boy out of the quips, but. Wait. No.”

“I’d stick to the sarcasm,” Helena says. “Frau Netz said something about possible organ damage, but apparently your speech centers are fine.”

“And we all know I’m only good for mouthing off,” Dick says, and then his thoughts snag for a moment; anywhere else, it would just be his usual mildly self-deprecating humor, but here everything is so serious, and it’s seeping into his bones. There’s no room for anything less than professionalism, and for all that Helena seems to indulge him in games of rooftop tag, as well as not incapacitating him out of irritation on a daily basis, it’s on him. He should be trying harder.

“I’m—” he starts, apology already fully-formed, and Helena stops him, holds up a finger. The room is nearly sharp now, and Dick can make out her expression, but he can’t quite read it; he doesn’t know whether to brace for a reprimand, and drops his gaze anyway.

“I wouldn’t say it’s _all_ that you’re good for,” Helena says, and he looks up at her in surprise. She holds her finger up again. “You’re reasonably good at carrying things.”

 _Chase me_ : she’s meeting him on his own terms, or she is for a moment, and then he watches her put herself back together, between one blink and another, all perfect edges like a puzzle box, and she’s all business again. “Let me see,” Helena says, brusque, and leans in, holds him by the chin, as impersonal as if he was a statue, and he goes as still as if it were true. Part of it is that he’s too dizzy, still, to move, at least more than he has to. Part of it, certainly, is that the only contact he’s had recently has been violent, and that’s — not pleasant, but still, better than nothing; in its own way, it’s certain — reassuring, oddly. Dick feels, though, as if he’s been starved, and gotten so used to it that now, indifferent as she seems, he’s transfixed.

There’s no way that Helena doesn’t notice, because that’s what she does: the skills that Dick grew into — walking into a room and reading it immediately, changing the way he takes up space accordingly, telegraphing danger or defense — she learned like a language, technically proficient where he’s never had to deconstruct what he does. He tries to strip away the significance, and breathe as if he isn’t acutely aware of doing so, but she tilts his head back, turns his face to the side, and raises an eyebrow; when she leans in, sets her finger at the corner of his eye, the room blurs again, and Dick wants to pull away, doesn’t want to give her this, but he doesn’t want Helena to stop.

She drops his chin, and picks up his hand; Dick had forgotten about his bruised knuckles, typically pays about as much attention to them as he would a minor scrape, but she curls his fingers under his palm, and considers the discoloration. He wishes that she would press her thumb into the swelling of it, inflamed tissue, and feels light-headed. This is why he shouldn’t indulge himself: he’ll get used to it, this casual contact that hasn’t been a part of his life since he left the circus, a long pause between the force out and the hollow, hanging in space before swinging into the fall, and if Dick gets used to it, he won’t be able to live without it. He’ll be a liability.

Helena puts his hand down, and he tries to pack himself away the way that she had, all efficient rigid tangents, and fails; she tilts her head, and Dick wishes that he couldn’t make out the expression on her face, because then he wouldn’t have to wonder — curiosity or interest? — and, instead, finds himself unable to look away.

“Hmm,” she says, instead, and considers him for a moment. When she leans in, Dick doesn’t flinch away, but that’s only because he sees her coming, this time; she settles her hand on the side of his neck, thumb tucked under the hinge of his jaw, and waits. He doesn’t know why. She already knows what his answer will be. He closes his eyes, too considered to be casual, and just barely leans into her touch, out into space, and waits for his calls.

“You aren’t bad at carrying things,” she says, again, “and you’re quite good at being dead.”

“Thanks,” Dick says, and even manages to work a little sarcasm into it. Helena presses her thumb into the point of his jaw, and he lets out all the breath in his lungs, entirely involuntarily.

“You’re reasonably good at following orders—” she runs her thumb down to the pulse in his throat, scratches a little, and he pushes against her hand “—and not a bad partner—” and she sets her thumb against the underside of his chin, holds him in place, the edge of her hand against his windpipe “—and a good agent,” Helena says, and curls her thumb against the hollow of his jaw until he can feel it in the base of his skull, and down his spine, and the words sound somehow like praise.

Helena holds him there for a long minute, and then moves her hand to the back of his head, scrapes lightly over the close-cropped hair at the nape of his neck, careful not to press her fingers into burned skin; Dick lets his head fall forward, and lets her hold him there, in a grip he could break simply by leaning forward. He isn’t doing it consciously now, simply letting her move him and give him this, the simple comfort of touch, and he doesn’t know how he lived without it, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do when she stops.

“Stop thinking,” Helena says, and taps a finger warningly against the base of his skull. “You were satisfactory. Rest.”

From her, it’s high praise; fortunately, Dick is more than used to making the most of very little when it comes to approval. He leans back into her hand, and listens to her humming, and aches, body and soul, and lets himself rest.

 


End file.
